Friday, March 30, 2012

A look at last night through the lens of a hangover

This morning the office reeks of burnt plastic. Something's wrong with the HVAC. No work on my desk yet so I have a few minutes to write this.

Grand summation of my thoughts on waking this morning: I'm a fucking idiot.

I've turned over everything I can remember and I don't think I did anything too bad. Boss got involved in a long conversation, probably sports-related, with the guy I gave my coat to (sure regretted that this morning when I walked to the bus stop), so if I said anything too asinine, it was probably just around the beautiful girl who sits across from me. And I think she is used to my asininity by now. Oh shut up, I tell myself, shut up. I can't.

Mostly blurs. Hysterics on the couch at the first bar, I don't remember why. Laughing so hard I couldn't sit up straight. Fireballs that went down way too easy. I was going to stop after one, I'm pretty sure, but somehow they kept appearing in front of me, and down they went. Texted M, said I was going out for a beer after work with my department. He said OK. Then my phone went off again at like 10:45, him asking whether I was going to bother to come home. I was sitting in front of a fire outside then, I remember, I think at the place that used to have a bull. A mechanical bull. A half-empty pack of cigarettes on the table in front of me. I still smell it in me, even after a long hot shower this morning. Brushed my teeth twice and the sour taste of mistakes won't go away. I just remembered I took all the cash out of my wallet and left it on the table by the fire. I think it was all singles but I don't know. Hope so. Found a receipt in my pocket that says I gave the cashier $70 for the cigarettes and lighter. That can't be right.

But hey, the circus of stupidity drowned the akathisia. It hasn't bubbled back up yet.

The beautiful girl drove me home. She played this song in the car, all spheres and intersections and light. It was lovely. I loved her then, loved that she said this was her favorite song. The spherical, empty shapes of it made me think about how we all carry these huge spaces inside us that no one else can fathom, and that one of the few ways we can see inside someone else is to look at the things that are their favorites. This favorite song made me understand her brain.

Or maybe I was just too doped up on her beauty. 

I looked at my kid when I got home. Asleep on the top bunk. Then to bed. At least she has one non-fucked-up parent. I try to keep it from her. I do. I try hard, hard, hard to keep it from her. I keep it away from her. No mistakes when I'm with her. That's the goal.

M put his hand on my side sometime. I rolled out of the bed onto the floor. I thought I was going to throw up from the feel of his hand on my skin. I crawled into the bathroom and sat on the floor for a long time. I sipped water. The sourness, sour sour sour, in my mouth. All that smoke. All those shots, all those beers. What was I thinking.

Then dreams. A continuation of happy "hour." Ha. Oh there was sometime last night when I felt so buoyant, so bubbled up and I knew I was wasting happiness, sucking it out of some other time when it was real, burning it with liquor until it evaporated into nothingness. Also though I had a hard time walking, the group was ahead of me and I looked down at my feet crossing over the paving stones and I thought, slow down, oh Jesus slow down. Herculean effort involved in staying upright and keeping my feet going.

In one of the dreams a beautiful naked man was our waiter. But he was mutilated. Ruined. He didn't seem to care, but I knew he was burning it out of himself whenever he wasn't working. I don't know how I knew. Dreams.  Who knows.

I think I was still drunk when I woke up this morning. My brain is dulled. My senses are flat. My ears ring. But other than that I seem to have all my pieces. M and the kid still asleep. Keep it hidden.

And that concludes this morning's wallowing in the land of self-castigation. Up and forward.

Today's picture.


1 comment:

  1. I'll have to thank you for giving me something new to care about on the internet. I enjoy your writing style too. Looking forward to future posts (& apologies for sounding like a fucking spambot).

    ReplyDelete